


It Was Just Banter

by KazOfScotland



Series: Familia Ante Omnia [5]
Category: Line of Duty
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 17:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KazOfScotland/pseuds/KazOfScotland
Summary: The joking and banter from Gates' unit affects Steve a bit more than he wanted to admit. His whole life it had always just been banter. Just some of his internal musings about the banter he'd encountered.





	It Was Just Banter

It was just a bit of banter! That one sentence was a constant for Steve throughout school and then it continued to follow him to the police force. He had been the target of the bullies, especially after his dad died and his mum had a breakdown leading him to the foster care system. It got even worse when he got placed with Lacey and Faith; Faith had been his teacher the year that he ended up in the foster care system and both she and her domestic partner were licensed foster carers, so when they got asked to take Steve following a serious beaten he had gotten at his previous placement, both women agreed knowing just how much the teenager had gone through. The social work only planned for it to be short term but it had turned out to be the first place that Steve had felt save since his dad had died. Eventually both women fought to adopt him with all three of them knowing that they didn’t want to separate and that Steve was as much their kid as he was his biological family’s. And whilst Steve was beyond relieved at the amount of love he received from Lacey and Faith and he would never trade them for the world, he just could’ve done without getting asked if he was gay because everyone knew Faith was. 

Then he had to grow up fast because he made a mistake, a mistake he would never change for the world but a mistake all the same, and he got his girlfriend, Emma, pregnant when they were only seventeen and in their last year of high school. He stopped going to parties at that point, instead he saved his money and worked extra hours to get more money for his child. But more than that he started to really focus on what he wanted for his future; to be a police officer. Despite everyone knowing that they still tried to convince him to got to a party, telling him it would be fun and he needed to lighten up. And seriously stop being so serious all the time! 

He had taken responsibility for his wrongs and tried to make them right but the picture on the board in TO-20 was more than enough to make him want to explode. He had been fighting guilt that he shouldn’t be feeling since the shooting but he knew that he had made the right call. But to hear Gates’ team twisting it to be his fault, he seriously questioned why he was even at AC-12, why didn’t he just lie like the higher ups wanted. 

 

When he met up with Kate later that night he honestly didn’t want her to even mention what had happened. He honestly just wanted whatever information she had gotten, so that he could maybe stand a chance of finishing the case and hopefully getting rid of the hatred that was sent his way.  And if he didn’t, then maybe it was time that he considers transferring to a department that wouldn’t require his past to be dragged out every time someone got upset. However, as was a common trait in his life, Steve’s hope was ignored and Kate said the five words that he had been hearing a version of for years. 

“It was just banter, mate.” And it was at that moment that he really started to question his fit in most places but he pushed it away, and did what he normally did best; his job. 

He pushed everything to the back of his mind, and decided to do the best that he could to find out if Gates’ unit was as dirty as they appeared to be. 


End file.
